UAW President Shawn Fain on Tuesday morning said workers should reject former President Donald Trump's overtures to them ahead of next year's election as Trump plans a visit to Detroit next week amid the union's strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis for better wages and benefits and more job protection.
"Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers," Fain said in a statement. "We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.”
Fain's statement came after a source close to the Trump campaign confirmed to the Free Press on Monday that Trump will visit Detroit next Wednesday, Sept. 27, and speak to some 500 workers, including current and former union members, instead of participating in that night's second Republican debate in California. Additional details of the event have not been released.
Trump, who leads in the polls for the GOP nomination, skipped the first debate last month as well. He has been critical of UAW leaders in the strike, arguing that rank-and-file members should reject any deal that allows for continued transition in the industry toward making more electric vehicles, or EVs.
EVs typically require fewer workers and Trump has argued repeatedly that they won't be made in the U.S., but in China. Those claims, however, fail to account for more than two dozen plants that have been opened or are set to open, partly with financing backed by the Biden administration. Detroit's automakers have all been planning a transition to making more EVs for some years.
Trump has also not addressed the UAW's demands in what is now a five-day limited strike, namely that automakers increase wages by as much as 40% over several years; get rid of a tiered salary system that sees new workers receive only a fraction of that senior ones do for years; and provide more benefits and job security.
Also, Michigan could be key to Trump's chances if he wins the GOP nomination next year: He won the state in 2016, eking out a narrow 10,704-vote victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with some support from autoworkers. Biden beat Trump in the state in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes.
As Trump has attempted to interject himself more in the strike, Fain has also noted that in the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump talked about the need to have auto jobs moved to states where they would be paid less as a way to force wage concessions elsewhere. "That's not a person I want as my president," Fain has said.